Published on Mar, 2019
My husband and I are both avid viewers of the Montalbano TV series so this excursion was a perfect day trip from Ortigia where we were staying for a few days last week. We originally tried to book this trip on Viator but the booking rejected as we would have been the only guests. However, we were delighted when Paolo came back to us with a fair price for a personal tour.
He picked us up promptly from our hotel in his new, comfortable Mercedes and chatted to us throughout the journey. As a local, Paolo is very well informed about the history, geography and food of this part of Sicily and he also had a lot of detailed knowledge about Montalbano.
We visited Montalbano’s beach house and took photos by the iconic terrace, his favourite beach restaurant ( not open yet as it was too early in the season) before moving on the the palazzo at Donnafugata. The scenery and views were amazing and Paolo gave us a lot of opportunities to take pictures. We then went to Ragusa and the to Modica to visit various churches and other locations from the TV series. The final highlight of the trip was a visit to the “real” Vigata police station at Scicli. This was like stepping right into a film set as everything has been left exactly as it was when they last filmed there- Catarella’s office, Fazio’s desk and Montalbano’s office, complete with files, clutter and paperwork.
This was a very interesting day and Paolo is a great guy as well as being an excellent guide. He looked after us very well and made special allowance for the fact that I am unable to walk very far due to an old leg injury, we will definitely use Paolo and Handy Sicily for excursions next time we come back to Sicily.